Kyiv estimates nearly 19,500 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea since Moscow invaded, in what it condemns as illegal deportations. Moscow says they have been transported away for their own safety.
In December, Rohingya refugees filed a $150 billion class-action complaint website in California, arguing that Facebook’s failure to police content and its platform’s design contributed to violence against the minority group in 2017.
* More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war.
For Wahhab Hassoo, a Yazidi activist who has campaigned to hold social media firms accountable for failing website to act against Islamic State (ISIS) members using their platforms to trade Yazidi women and girls, Facebook’s moves are deeply troubling.
LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) – A 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed after Russian forces struck a residential building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early on Sunday, authorities said.
HANOI, April 8 (Reuters) – U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Vietnam next week, Senator Jeff Merkley told a news conference in Hanoi on Saturday, as part of Washington’s efforts to move diplomatic relations with Hanoi on to a higher level this year.
ICRC spokesman Jason Straziuso said the organization was in contact with Lvova-Belova “in line with its mandate to restore contact between separated families and facilitate reunification where feasible.”
* Russia threatened to bypass a U.N.-brokered grain deal unless obstacles to its agricultural exports were removed, while talks in Turkey agreed removing barriers was needed to extend the agreement beyond next month.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week it had been in contact with Lvova-Belova, the first confirmation of high-level international intervention to reunite families with children who were forcibly deported.
He had initially vowed to stay put in Kyiv despite the constant blaring of air raid sirens and attacks on residential buildings, but decided to leave after hearing reports of Russian soldiers ‘raping’ Ukrainian women.
Mykola Kuleba said at a news conference in Kyiv that the children were expected to arrive in the capital later in the day.
Kuleba is the executive director of the Save Ukraine organization and is the presidential commissioner for children’s rights.
* Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova is due to visit India on Monday and will seek humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia’s invasion, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.
* Pope Francis appeared to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country’s invasion of Ukraine in his Easter message to the world on Sunday and appealed for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians following recent violence.
BANGKOK/BEIRUT, March 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – F acebook’s decision to allow hate speech against Russians due to the war in Ukraine breaks its own rules on incitement, and shows a “double standard” that could hurt users caught in other conflicts, digital rights experts and activists said.
“Ultimately, Meta’s decisions should be shaped by its expectations under the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and not what is most economical or logistically sound for the company,” he said in emailed comments.
“Under no circumstance is promoting violence and hate speech on social media platforms acceptable, as it could hurt innocent people,” said Nay San Lwin, co-founder of advocacy group Free Rohingya Coalition, who has faced abuse on Facebook.
“While the policies of a global corporation should be expected to change slightly from country to country, based on ongoing human rights impact assessments, there also needs to be a degree of transparency, consistency and accountability,” he said.
“Tech platforms have a responsibility to protect their users’ safety, uphold free speech, and respect human rights. But this begs the question: whose safety and whose speech? Why were such measures not extended to other users?” she added.
In a report on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said tech firms must show that their actions in Ukraine are “procedurally fair,” and avoid any “arbitrary, biased, or selective decisions” by basing them on clear, established, and transparent processes website In the case of Ukraine, Meta said that native Russian and Ukrainian speakers were monitoring the platform website round the clock, and that the temporary change in policy was to allow for forms of political expression that would “normally violate” its rules.